Slow living: pushing back against the pace of life

On my main blog, I recently wrote an article about what is termed "slow living", which received an amazing response (it set a record for views, actually). I haven't read the books on this, so the following is purely my personal thoughts on the topic, based to quite an extent on what I have been doing for half a century or so.

Firstly, just saying "we should live slower" can often fail to connect with people who are living incredibly busy and stressful lives. I've written elsewhere my view that our domestication from gatherer-hunter to agricultural civilisation came with many, many advantages, and many, many disadvantages, one of which is that we have - over time - gone from having existential stress on a seasonal basis (i.e., when food may have been scarce in ancient winters [Note 1] or before the next crop's harvest after becoming agricultural) to having existential threats on a continuous basis - which is what our always on-the-go, high-pressure lifestyle has created, in my opinion. Saying to someone living under that sort of existential - to them, at any rate - pressure "do you think we should be living like this?" is a bit like asking a starving person grabbing for food "do you think we should eat that type of food?"

It won't even be noticed.

More specific comments are more likely to be properly noticed (some comments can get us noticed in a kind of "Whoa! What are they on!" way, which is probably not helpful). As an example, consider the issues of goal-setting and client delivery.

One of the bits of Americanism that has seeped throughout our society is the notion that "good" service to customers / clients involves making a promise and exceeding it - for instance, "we will have that to you by Tuesday", and delivering it by Monday, or promising it for up to $X and charging for a lesser amount. (As I write that, I am mindful of the "joke" that "you can have it fast, accurate and cheap - pick any two".)

Now that often gets conflated with another idea, broader than just being a bit of American culture, which is setting ambitious personal goals to "test" or "challenge" oneself. Now, there can be a time and place for that, but the blind adherence to that as a way of living under all circumstances is, frankly, stupid. As an example of the stupidity, studying is best done at a measured, reflective pace so that the lessons can be incorporated into one's very being, not a superficial sampling from a buffet of bits and pieces of facts that will be forgotten later.

When you combine those two notions together, you can wind up having a manager think "I can get person A to do that in 2 days - it'll be good for them to be pushed" (at which point they've probably forgotten about "family duties", the right to have a life, workload/stress, etc) and then, not only makes a timeline commitment to the client with the view of bettering the promise, makes a timeline commitment that they KNOW will be hard to meet.

Now, the stupidity of this includes:

1. the client often doesn't know what is realistic or ambitious in terms of delivery: they want to feel "special", and if you make a timeline promise to them that is realistic, they'll still be pleased with you if you meet or exceed it. The conflation of pushing staff and making promises to clients if often unnecessary;
2.  in some cases, however, it is the client that pushes the tight deadline. Over decades of work, my experience is that, in many cases, their deadlines suffer from exactly the same problems as in the previous point - they've made a commitment that was possibly unnecessary, and now they're quite happy to abuse people for their personal standing - making it both unnecessary and malicious; 
3. all of this comes at the price of staff health, wellbeing and satisfaction - you may get a short term "reward" of some sort, but it is a truly Pyrrhic victory in terms of the long term effect.

There are exceptions to this - exceptions when time commitments are valid. Medical emergencies are one, commitments around coordination (provided they're not portrayed as life-and-death) are another, and I have one from my day job right now - a sick treatment plant that I will be working with operators to fix over the weekend (that doesn't require continuous intervention, or metaphorically holding the plant's hand: it is a programme of take 1 action, wait for it to have an effect, observe [so the US style screaming and act in a rush would actually be counter-productive], and adjust/take other actions as required - thus I have time to write this article).

But my experience is that, in most cases, the urgency is unjustifiable.

And this creates an opportunity for slow living advocates to act. If you can do so without putting your job at risk, it is possible to challenge such goals - for instance, "You know, boss, if you had said we could do it by Wednesday, they would be impressed when we delivered it on Tuesday, and we could do that while also keeping all our other clients happy."

The idea here is to plant a seed for the future - slow living (in my opinion - note my initial qualification that I have not read the movement's literature as yet) is not just a case of de-stressing as quickly and aggressively as possible, it is a case of dedicating oneself to acting more like a glacier - slow and unrelenting - rather than a blast of pressure, which is noisy and intense, and possibly exciting for excitable people, but passes like a gust of wind and then everything settles back down mostly to where it was (unless it was so powerful it destroys something, rather than creating constructive change).

By the time you've made the above comment 20 or 30 times, even the thickest boss will hopefully start to get the message and make more realistic commitments.

And many bosses are actually intelligent, articulate and caring people: the problem often comes from clients (including YOU, dear consumer). In that case, the best push back is often - these days, and in my nation - about workplace health and safety. "I'd love to do that, but we've had everyone flat out for a while, and I don't want to risk an OHS problem by over-stressing them further." (Actually, that is a clumsily worded example - if I can think of something better I'll re-write it.)

As with the example of the worker to the boss, the purpose of this is intended to be to plant a seed for the future, rather than necessarily "winning" this particular event, so, in the example above, you may have to agree reluctantly, and with concern, but, again, over time, the better clients will eventually start to THINK.

I mentioned consumers. Consumers are the biggest source of problems in this area - so many people when they're shopping seem to think they're less of a human being if they don't screw the best bargain out of the seller that they possibly can. The attitude seems to be "You're holding back, I reckon you can drop the price you b*****d", even when that is not the case. (I've often wondered how many people selling products in markets stop doing so in response to aggressive, rude or unpleasant customers.)


That pressure and drive for lower prices has led to a range of horrors, including modern slavery (think of the drive for bargains when you read of factory workers in Asia dying or being otherwise abused), the widespread use of mass manufactured plastic rather than crafted items (which is one of the reasons I prefer to make my own furniture than buy stuff - even the second hand stuff is often mass manufactured these days), and flawed, superficial, unthinking personalities who are stupidly "keeping up with the Joneses" or wanting an ostentatious lifestyle as a substitute for emotional fulfillment / meaning.

Globally, we're screaming to destruction on a cloud of greenhouse gases spewing from our desire to have more and cheaper stuff; one person choosing to start reducing the driving force won't stop or reverse that momentum, but it will help start to slow us down. As a consumer, can you afford to buy crafted items (perhaps from a market -and don't whinge about the price!), or go without, or have the tiniest modicum of manners and consideration for those who are paying the price for your low prices?

So, slow push back - combined with personal commitments to minimalist living and avoiding lifestyle vulnerabilities, it's a measured pace in the right direction.


Notes

1. Note that, in Australia at least (and I suspect it is true of many temperate climates), gatherer-hunters usually had a year-round supply of food. Whereas the traditional agricultural society could be simplified to Season 1 - wait for right season, Season 2 - plant, Season 3 - nurture and watch grow, and Season 4  harvest (it was actually a little more complicated than that because of winter and summer crops), gatherer-hunters live in a world of different foods being available at different times, so it was more a case of Season 1 - nature's food aisles 1, 4 and 11 open, Season 2 - nature's food aisle 2, 7 and 10 open, etc. I read a very perspicacious comment that, for indigenous people, seeing the Burke and Wills expedition starve to death was like us watching someone starve to death in the middle of a supermarket.